FFXIV Random Speculation/Question thread VI: Phase 3, FFXIV is still on the rag!

[Gokulo]

Red Lotus also uses mp afair.

[Maguspk]

Heard today leves are on a 24 hour cooldown now, didn't know this, I was only checking every other day...

[Spork]

Even if they totally removed the surplus system tomorrow.. idk man.. holy shit this game is still a huge ass grind. Maybe I'm just getting too old or played too many other grind-free MMO's but I'm not sure I can take this play style anymore.

It's actually worse than FFXI. In FFXI I could kick back, throw in a DVD or watch some TV while I grind away. You had auto attack and just had to worry about tossing a weapon skill or a curing waltz to heal yourself once in awhile.

In FFXIV you're constantly running around searching for your next kill trying to beat 10 other people to the next rat spawn while level 50 rams & dodos occupy the bulk of the spawn points. Combat is non-stop button mashing. I tried to grind out a level today and after 30min I was just bored and my wrists hurt.

Grinding in a party isn't any better. Constantly running around to find mobs; people going AFK, DCing, or getting lost.. and the exp bonus is just not there. Again, grinding in a party in FFXI was relaxing (unless you were the puller). You just stood in one spot and wtf owned mob after mob and the exp chain system rewarded you for efficiency.

I do really enjoy the leve system, and think that should have been the main source of leveling. Keep the regional and local leves on their 48 hour cool down but add a 3rd category called training leves that offer no item or cash reward, just the exp and have them reset every hour.

+2c

[Cureslime]

Leves seem to reset at about the 2 day mark and also "whenever S-E feels like it"

[BlackheartX]

Anyone filling up on inventory slots 160 slots is hardly enough to last more than a few hrs. I need a safe that doesn't take five hours to trade with. AH, mail system, and a safe are things that would drastically unfail this system.

[Ae Cha]

I don't even understand why they have limits on leves at all. What is so bad about being able to do more than 8 leves every 48 hours? I really do not want to have to grind mobs for 90% of my leveling experience. Leveling should be a fun and easy way of learning the basic mechanics of your class, not a gigantic painful time sink. Hell, just make it WoW casual. I'd much prefer they focus on putting difficulty into group quests and end game encounters that have more depth than "desperately struggle to beat JP bots to the claim" or "your whole LS is banned in the middle of it for using Windower because SE makes shitty cryptic UIs they'd rather force people to play with than make the slightest effort to improve (THANKS FOR NO BUFF TIMERS AGAIN, DUDES)" or "only difficult for the first few years because SE does their god damn best to make sure every little detail of the game mechanics is a secret nobody will ever know about until an obese Japanese neckbeard gets around to parsing logs for two months straight" or "Absolute Virtue".

If they're trying to kill RMT, just make gil god damn easier to get. Less people will buy gil if the alternative isn't grinding for two weeks or praying to god for a rare spawn and drop.

[Destinye]

Grinds are part of an MMO. Period. Even MMOs "without" grinds has grinds. Leves without limits will make gil worthless pretty quickly. They want FFXIV more accessible but not uber easy.

[Myth]

I think this needs to be reiterated to some people.

Welcome. This is a Beta.

[Maguspk]

Grinds are part of an MMO. Period. Even MMOs "without" grinds has grinds. Leves without limits will make gil worthless pretty quickly. They want FFXIV more accessible but not uber easy.

Make gil available as a reward once every 48 hours, problem fucking solved. Stop being stupid.You don't need to limit the core mechanic because of a reward, alter the reward not the mechanic. Jesus.

[Insanecyclone]

Out of the loop here but what is surplus in this? From how you guys are talking about it, it seems to be a xp limit of some sort?

[Celeras]

Quest games are nothing but hand-holding retardation, if you dont want to grind play another genre. Leves are casual content.

[Ae Cha]

Grinds are part of an MMO. Period. Even MMOs "without" grinds has grinds. Leves without limits will make gil worthless pretty quickly. They want FFXIV more accessible but not uber easy.

By "grind" I mean "sitting in one spot for 7 hours killing rats". Levequests at least give an illusion of variability that makes it bearable.

How would it make gil worthless? Just make the gil rewards on easy leves lower and put the big rewards on leves that are difficult to accomplish. If the economy and gear/item acquisition is largely player driven like it was in XI, people will raise their prices to the inflation anyway.

I think this needs to be reiterated to some people.

Welcome. This is a Beta.

Complaining is part of a beta. Complaints are how SE will know what they're doing is being received well by the players or not. If nobody complains because "this is a beta" then nothing changes.

[shidobu]

drop rate on crystals is fucking retarded now.
phase 2 i had 999 stacks of fire shards
phase 3 i barely have 300

i made a plan to do smithing today dump 60k into it see how far i could get.
I run out of shards/crystals before i run out of money. i still have 45k left to waste.
/sigh, 90% of crafting problems would be solved with a functional AH. They need to open that shit up if they expect us to "test their crafting system". If we cant get the resources we need how the fuck they expect us to test anything.

ninja edit.
And before somebody goes "talk with other crafters", Thats a whole other problem in its self.

[mintyice]

Make gil available as a reward once every 48 hours, problem fucking solved. Stop being stupid.You don't need to limit the core mechanic because of a reward, alter the reward not the mechanic. Jesus.

Better yet, lower the fucking gil reward.

[Myth]

Complaining is part of a beta. Complaints are how SE will know what they're doing is being received well by the players or not. If nobody complains because "this is a beta" then nothing changes.

I understand that complaints are going to happen it's inevitable, but some people are complaining like this is a full retail version with numerous major bugs/flaws. I'm looking at you Bad Company 2.

[Ae Cha]

Quest games are nothing but hand-holding retardation, if you dont want to grind play another genre. Leves are casual content.

If you want to be HARDCORE, go play EQ. The idea that tedium is an acceptable substitute for actual engaging play and challenge is ridiculous. I don't know about you, but I feel much more accomplished when I finish a difficult encounter that required me to actually fire more than six neurons than when I kill my eight millionth crab and I'm still level 40. It's artificial difficulty.

I understand that complaints are going to happen it's inevitable, but some people are complaining like this is a full retail version with numerous major bugs/flaws. I'm looking at you Bad Company 2.

There's only a little more than a month left until retail. At this point, it looks like it's going to be.

[Spork]

At least if you're gonna make us grind, make it like other games and give us a chance to get a cool item off normal mobs in the world. A weapon, armor, ring, something.

Slaying 1000 mobs to get to the next level knowing that all you're going to see for loot is a "rat tail +1" and some crystals is pretty fucking ZzzzzZZzzzz.

Take wow for example. 1 in 100 mobs might drop a green weapon or armor. 1 in 1000 might drop a blue. 1 in 10,000 might drop a purple. Just adds a little bit of excitement to it.

But no, we had to go make 70% of the classes in the game crafters and they must be the only source for loot.

[Celeras]

If you want to be HARDCORE, go play EQ. The idea that tedium is an acceptable substitute for actual engaging play and challenge is ridiculous. I don't know about you, but I feel much more accomplished when I finish a difficult encounter that required me to actually fire more than six neurons than when I kill my eight millionth crab and I'm still level 40. It's artificial difficulty.

Those things aren't mutually exclusive. There's nothing to argue here, if you enjoy playing on rails find another game. FFXIV isn't for you, nor was FFXI.. so I don't know why you'd be interested in the first place.

[SilverBreeze]

Pretty much what Celeras said. That's the end of that discussion.

It would be wise if it didn't start again, protip.

[qpoiuwer]

For fucks sake, you guys are seriously worse than the actual beta forums.